{"id":143,"date":"2013-12-02T21:13:11","date_gmt":"2013-12-02T13:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.www.innovationiseverywhere.com\/?p=143"},"modified":"2013-12-02T21:13:11","modified_gmt":"2013-12-02T13:13:11","slug":"exploration-startups-innovation-in-kenya-mbwana-alliy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/exploration-startups-innovation-in-kenya-mbwana-alliy\/","title":{"rendered":"A exploration of startups and innovation in Kenya with Mbwana Alliy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As you may know, we were in Kenya to attend\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.afrikoin.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Afrikoin<\/a>, a conference on mobile money, and to continue our exploration of innovation ecosystems. How are countries and cities pivoting towards entrepreneurship? What are the fundamentals and best local practices used as they try to build and nurture communities of innovations?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/SavannahFund-Mbwana-Alliy-martin-pasquier-interview-afrikoin-kenya-ecosystem-of-startups-success-stories-mpesa-africa-internet-mobile-phones1-3.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-251\" src=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/SavannahFund-Mbwana-Alliy-martin-pasquier-interview-afrikoin-kenya-ecosystem-of-startups-success-stories-mpesa-africa-internet-mobile-phones1-3.jpg\" alt=\"Martin pasquier innovation is everywhere nairobi kenya mpesa SavannahFund Mbwana Alliy interview afrikoin kenya ecosystem of startups success stories mpesa africa internet mobile phones\" width=\"674\" height=\"271\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>After Afrikoin, we had a quick but fruitful discussion with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Mbwana\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mbwana Alliy<\/a>. Mbwana runs the\u00a0<a href=\"www.savannah.vc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Savannah Fund\u00a0<\/a>from Nairobi,\u00a0which has invested in 9 startups in Africa. He told us how Kenya has become what it is today.<\/p>\n<p>For Mbwana, there is\u00a0<em>\u00ab\u00a0the conditions, the atmosphere\u00a0\u00bb<\/em>\u00a0of the ecosystem, and\u00a0<em>\u00ab\u00a0the sparks, what makes it move in one direction or another\u00a0\u00bb<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h2>Innovation in Kenya: Primed and ready<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It&rsquo;s\u00a0<strong>the biggest economy in East Africa<\/strong>, and as such, it&rsquo;s also a transportation and aviation hub for East Africa.\u00a0<strong>Talents<\/strong>\u00a0are flowing in, from and through Nairobi.<\/li>\n<li>It&rsquo;s a\u00a0<strong>capitalistic country<\/strong>. Not so long ago, the USSR had a large influence in Africa and countries like Tanzania are still socialist-leaning. Kenya, on the other hand, is a former British colony and thus leans on \u00ab\u00a0the other side\u00a0\u00bb.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Kenya-economy-diversification-afrikoin-startup-innovation-martin-pasquier-3.gif\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-229\" src=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Kenya-economy-diversification-afrikoin-startup-innovation-martin-pasquier-3.gif\" alt=\" Martin pasquier innovation is everywhere nairobi kenya mpesa SavannahFund Mbwana Alliy interview afrikoin kenya ecosystem of startups success stories mpesa africa internet mobile phones Kenya economy diversification \" width=\"203\" height=\"255\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It&rsquo;s\u00a0<strong>an English-speaking country<\/strong>\u00a0since it was previously British (Even South Africa&rsquo;s native language is not English) The tech world speaks primarily in English.<\/li>\n<li>The economy is\u00a0<strong>diversified<\/strong>\u00a0and is not resource-based, unlike Nigeria, another country touted as an innovation hub. Tourism, exports, manufacturing and services make Kenya&rsquo;s economy a balanced one and allow innovation to stem from many industries. (In Nigeria, if you want to succeed, the oil &amp; gas industry is by and large your best bet.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>The Sparks that\u00a0ignited innovation in Kenya<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>2002-2005<\/strong>: the\u00a0<strong>drop in the prices of phones<\/strong>\u00a0made it accessible to more and more people<\/li>\n<li><strong>2005-2006:<\/strong>\u00a0Kenya lays down its first\u00a0<strong>undersea cable<\/strong>\u00a0to connect to the internet. It is now at the heart of the East Africa coast in terms of connectedness. The 3G network is also being built at the same time and allows the first ISP to grow (Africa Online).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/african_undersea_cables_map-kenya-innovation-martin-pasquier-3.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-197\" src=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/african_undersea_cables_map-kenya-innovation-martin-pasquier-3.png\" alt=\" Martin pasquier innovation is everywhere nairobi kenya mpesa SavannahFund Mbwana Alliy interview afrikoin kenya ecosystem of startups success stories mpesa africa internet mobile phones african_undersea_cables_map \" width=\"700\" height=\"334\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>2007:<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>MPesa<\/strong>\u00a0is born! It will only become the mainstream mobile money payment system for Kenya in 2010. This innovation\u00a0<strong>allows the unbanked to pay and receive money<\/strong>, and new services are built around this platform (as you can see with the latest startups working on bridging Bitcoins to MPesa for remittances)<\/li>\n<li><strong>2008:<\/strong>\u00a0The\u00a0<strong>election crisis<\/strong>\u00a0saw the development of\u00a0<a href=\"www.ushahidi.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Ushahidi<\/strong><\/a>, a project which crowdsources crisis information through mobile.<\/li>\n<li><strong>2010:<\/strong>\u00a0<em>\u00ab\u00a0The Ushahidi mafia\u00a0\u00bb<\/em>, in turn, facilitated the development of\u00a0<strong>iHub<\/strong>, today&rsquo;s main hub for innovators and startups in Nairobi, similar to how the Paypal mafia in the US gave birth to other key innovations (Youtube, Tesla Motors, LinkedIn, Yelp&#8230;). They now have a supercomputer and a Research Lab, all projects launched by people associated with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/whiteafrican\u200e\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Erik Hersman<\/a>, the founder of Ushahidi.<\/li>\n<li><strong>2013:<\/strong>\u00a0A new\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vision2030.go.ke\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u00ab\u00a0Vision 2030\u00a0\u00bb<\/a>\u00a0is approved by the government, with a new place proposed for\u00a0<strong><a href=\"www.konzacity.co.ke\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Konza City<\/a>, an innovation cluster\u00a0<\/strong>out of Nairobi. Price tag: $14.5bn.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_233\" style=\"width: 736px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/konza-city-kenya-innovation-cluster-startup-ecosystem-nairobi-afrikoin-africa-martin-pasquier-1-3.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-233\" class=\"size-full wp-image-233\" src=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/konza-city-kenya-innovation-cluster-startup-ecosystem-nairobi-afrikoin-africa-martin-pasquier-1-3.jpg\" alt=\" Martin pasquier innovation is everywhere nairobi kenya mpesa SavannahFund Mbwana Alliy interview afrikoin kenya ecosystem of startups success stories mpesa africa internet mobile phones African undersea cables map konza city\" width=\"726\" height=\"429\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-233\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Konza City plans<\/p><\/div>\n<p>On top of this historical approach, Mbwana insists that <strong>Kenya is<\/strong><strong>\u00a0not Silicon Valley<\/strong>. Rather than a global approach, startups here should\u00a0<strong>serve their market first<\/strong>\u00a0before even thinking about entering other African markets, each unique and different from the rest (a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.www.innovationiseverywhere.com\/cultural-awareness-innovation-challenges-facing-startups-go-global\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reflexion we had also with Samuel Gichuru from Nailab<\/a>, a startup incubator).<\/p>\n<p>With Ethiopia and Tanzania nearby, that&rsquo;s already some 120 million people waiting to be served.<\/p>\n<p>Martin Pasquier<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As you may know, we were in Kenya to attend\u00a0Afrikoin, a conference on mobile money, and to continue our exploration of innovation ecosystems. How are countries and cities pivoting towards entrepreneurship? What are the fundamentals and best local practices used as they try to build and nurture communities of innovations? &nbsp; After Afrikoin, we had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[47,49,92,51],"tags":[69,111,114,78,72,115],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-countries","category-innovators-category","category-investors-angels-vcs","category-markets-category","tag-africa","tag-east-africa","tag-ethiopia","tag-kenya","tag-tanzania","tag-uganda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}